Learning from life
in public.
I was a surfer before any of this, and good surfers learn timing.
Not just when to paddle or when to stand up, but how to read what's about to happen: the wave, the other surfers, the shore, the positioning — and, if you're lucky, the moment.
One day, a mentor asked a simple question: what if that's how almost everything works?
That question stuck.
A good conversation has a moment. So does a joke. A relationship. A song. Sometimes we catch it. Sometimes we miss it. And sometimes we don't even know what we were supposed to be looking for until the moment has already passed.
Maybe that's why stand-up feels so much like surfing to me. On stage, I feel like I'm in the ocean again.
In fact, I love stand-up comedy more than I love learning or surfing.
The irony? I now suspect they're all the same thing.
I'm working on a theory that great stand-up comedians might be apex learners because there's nowhere to hide on stage. If a joke is bad, you know. If the timing is off, everyone knows. If the guitar falls apart, there's no editing it later.
Which raises a bigger question: what if failing isn't the opposite of learning? What if it's part of how learning happens?
That's what I'm trying to find out.
The show is an experiment in learning in public. Every performance is different. There are conversations, stories, music, jokes, mistakes, and whatever I happen to be curious about that week.
I don't think humans have to master something before they can learn from it. Sometimes we just have to stay with it long enough to notice what's happening.
That's where curiosity comes in.
When something goes wrong, I get curious.
A mistake. A bad joke. A relationship. Sex. A missed opportunity. A guitar note that comes out wrong.
Look again. Ask another question. Try something. See what changes.
This show isn't a finished theory about learning. It's me trying to figure out how learning actually works by putting myself in situations where I have to learn — and letting you watch.
Follow the project as it changes — each version shaped by what the last one taught me.
A conversation with my godson about his anxiety about the end of the world.
A portrait of my first teacher. He showed me that learning could feel like dancing while making a mess.
A fictional man. The loops in his head. What it felt like when he started playing someone else's music.
Two men on the sidewalk of Main Street. A random encounter. Holding devastation.